Elaeagnus, Hawaii, lovage and Robert Duvall
Abundance: Monday 22 April 2024
A garden is a place of ghosts. Not all of them people, and few of them dead. If I’m out there - for a minute or a day - faces are called to mind, places revisited, moments recalled and relived.
Pruning the neighbours’ overhanging Elaeagnus ebbingei last week, revealed a couple of dozen small oval fruit in the tangle of branches. They aren’t much to write home about, if truth be told - to call them ‘astringent’ does them a kindness - but they’re ok, and the many birds that take them are most welcome.
I love Elaeagnus for two more substantial reasons. All Elaeagnus species take nitrogen from the air and use it to feed themselves, making the excess available in the soil for neighbouring plants, while the leaves of deciduous varieties also share their nitrogen as they decompose, wherever the wind drops them. One way or another, Elaeagnus nourish the garden and some of the creatures who live and pass through it.
In the old place, I planted a few between Asian pears, in the understory of a peach, and alongside a row of pecans; great rows of Elaeagnus umbellata - autumn olive - bordered and defined orchards, and threw their life-giving nutrients to the crops either side.
The early autumn flowers that precede the fruit are unremarkable from a distance, yet cute has hell close up; best of all, their scent is utterly transporting1. The invisible fragrant clouds they release are unreliable, turning up when they like, and leaving when they fancy. For reasons unknown2, and as with quince, you push your nose into the blossom and the perfume is mild or absent; turn to leave, and a few paces away it fills the senses. You can’t chase it, it comes to you.
Elaeagnus reminds me of an American friend, Trent, who worked at our old farm. I’d always wanted a friend with a surname for a first name; a major disappointment was him not using an initial either before or after his first name, but he knew more than I did about looking after a vineyard, so I made allowances. On the way in from picking grapes, when he stopped in his tracks.
“Oh man, what is that?”
“That’s the Elaeagnus ebbingei.”
“I know that smell, I’d know it anywhere. Give me a minute ...”
I kept quiet, allowing him to empty his head as he stared at the sky, trying to place it. He buried his face in the plant. No joy. We walked on a few paces and the invisible cloud found him.
Like Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now, he felt for the words.
“I’ve got it. It smells like....Hawaii!”
Anytime since that I smell it, prune it or plant it, I think of Trent3, and when I smell that scent I imagine an island I’ll likely never visit, my mind knowing it a little better despite life keeping us apart.
Rhubarb and lovage gimlet
As I uncovered each Elaeagnus fruit, I threw it down onto the softest landing pad available: the compost of a large pot of Scots lovage. Lovage is the definition of Sod’s Law: such is its bitter, savoury intensity, you need only very little in the kitchen, yet it grows briskly, in its indestructible way, requiring numerous dedicated attempts on its life to keep it under control. Scots (aka Scotch) lovage is a considerably smaller, rounder-leaved - a more succulent variation - and perfect for a container by the kitchen door.
Rather than make something with the Elaeagnus fruit in the pot - which would please no-one - I pinched a few leaves of lovage for this superb sundowner.
For the lovage syrup: stir 250ml boiling water into 300g of caster sugar until it dissolves. Throw in a good handful of lovage leaves and allow to infuse while it cools - taste it now and again, and when it is good and strong take out and discard the leaves.
A juicer will reduce rhubarb stems to a sharp, pale pink liquid in an instant, otherwise use a good cloudy apple juice.
The lime juice is yours to judge: typically, if find half a juicy lime about right.
25ml gin
25ml rhubarb juice
25ml lovage syrup (see above)
lime juice
Add everything plus ice to a cocktail shaker and shake for half a minute or so, straining into a suitable glass. If you are without a shaker, use a jar and strain through a sieve.
It is as close as I know to the scent of broad bean flowers, which might be my favourite fragrance of all
To me at least
Trent is now making incredible saddlery and leading horse treks through the hills of west coast America
Delighted that you also appreciate the scent of broad bean flowers: “Eau de fave” would be a wonderful perfume.
The ghosts parts resonated! I grow a fig and an iris both from my French grandfathers garden and when dear friends pass I find a plant to remind me of them and it becomes their plant. My English grandfather is linked to strawberries as my first strawberry plants come from his garden. I never knew to smell quince flowers - thank you! My tree is full of flowers as are the apple trees, such a beautiful time. My apricot has little fruits this year for the first time in 8 years. It’s there because I read taste of the unexpected a long time ago and I wondered whether it would ever produce in the cooler midlands but there they are in a very cold spring growing away. Do you think an autumn olive would do well in the midlands? The garden can be quite wet in winter and has heavy clay.